The use of auricular tags (ear tags) in the identification of cattle has been known for many years, and were typically known to generally include a male portion which was punched through the ear of the animal, into a female portion, with the ear trapped between the two.
There were many problems or limitations related to formerly known auricular tags. For instance:                A. There was a challenge in providing a product having certain feature combinations such as a maximal insertion force, to allow hand installation by an average farmer, while maintaining both a minimal extraction force, to prevent undesired retraction of the male portion, and a maximal extraction force to ensure breakage.        B. Once the punctured ear was trapped between the two portions, the ear sometimes had healing difficulties which could lead to infection.        C. Some tags could be tampered with and/or fraudulently used in violation with prior agreements.        D. There were challenges in identifying animals from a distance.        E. There were challenges in maintaining costs low for a given set of features of a tag.        F. A substantial amount of skill was required for installing the tag at a position on the ear to be both practical and favour healing.        
There thus remained room for improvement.